Chapter 571: Chapter 571

There exists a being known as Pangu.

The creator deity of Taoism.

A myth that the Yozoku came to love sharing after the founding of the Ming Dynasty. Said to have first been written in an old Wu Kingdom text called the “Records of the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors.”

A story in which the world was created from the death of a giant the size of the heavens.

Naturally, the northern Yozoku wouldn’t leave such a tale unused.

They too were large in stature and intended to found a nation of their own someday. Even their architectural style—“Sharp-Spired Houses,” with rooftops that jutted up like blades—spoke to this.

Even the Yozoku commoners who built their own homes were fiercely warlike by nature.

Blacksmiths of the North who knew only how to forge blades. Axe-wielding warriors who passed martial arts between each other under the term "schools" rather than sects. Vagabond fighters who refused glory under the Northern Kings and instead roamed the wilderness pillaging.

All beings who reveled in elevating themselves.

Even the nation names Mun Gok had prepared in advance were being widely used.

Likewise, the “Legend of Pangu” was just another means to elevate their clan’s prestige. At the same time, it served as a central image in Yozoku secret techniques.

A massive body untouchable by sword or spear, clad in Heaven-Piercing Armor.

Strength enough to rip ancient trees out by the roots with nothing but outer power.

Add to that a plausible form, and the possession of extraordinary shields and spears—and they had every right to call themselves Pangu’s descendants.

“...Just like the lies of the Ming imperial family.”

The giant standing tall in the wasteland laughed.

It was Mun Gok of the Liu Yuan Star Generals.

“They say long-eared, short-statured kin returned from the heavenly gates to destroy the wicked Yuan and establish the Great Ming alongside the Taizu... ha ha, not foreigners, but ‘returning kin’? What an exceptional bit of wordplay. I truly learned a lot from them.”

“Whether Pah Gun knew or not, it was a collaboration between Ming Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang and the Empress Dowager. The Emperor wanted the strength of the Ming martial masters, and the Empress Dowager wanted stability for the clans that had fled from the Gate. Their mutual understanding allowed them to annihilate the vast martial forces of the Yuan.”

Thus, the Mongol horse martial arts, now only a name, were absorbed by the Yozoku.

Because the interests of the Yozoku and the former Yuan aligned. One sought conquest, the other annihilation.

“So, just as the Yaryul King must have something to trade with me as well. Regrettable and troublesome though it may be. Only now do I begin to understand why North Dao of the World elevated you to Liu Yuan Star General...”

As he spoke, Mun Gok lifted Yaryul King high into the air—nearly level with a castle wall.

A frame nine cheok tall.

He had grasped Jeong Yeon-shin’s right arm and raised him up.

A cracking sound rang out from Yaryul King's half-torn armpit. But neither of them reacted. They only stared into each other’s eyes.

Grains of sand kicked up by shockwaves drifted down their bodies.

The blood that had once poured from Jeong Yeon-shin’s split armpit had long since stopped.

Only the sand-laced wind rustled across the thick puddles of blood.

Meanwhile, a dark blue shimmer wavered from the giant’s body. Even the mirage stretched wide across the wasteland began to distort.

And the one said to have spoken most with the God of War continued.

“So it seems my Flame of True Machine Armor is useless against Pah Gun. That’s never happened before—how troubling. I’ve no idea what kind of defensive energy technique you’re wearing.”

The Han language, pronounced with chilling clarity.

Jeong Yeon-shin’s head, hanging from Mun Gok’s grasp, tilted ever so slightly to the side.

“To be so at ease, right next to me.”

Following his head's subtle tilt, ebony hair cascaded down smoothly.

The very figure of Prince Nezha, the battle god of folk belief.

Those who had once dubbed him “Lotus Nezha” had seen true.

And Mun Gok, the most broadly experienced of the Liu Yuan Star Generals, did not miss that aura.

Suddenly, from inside Jeong Yeon-shin’s right arm, colorless threads unraveled.

Jeongga Donggong Technique

The Chapter of the Ghost-Roaring Conqueror

Strands of materialized inner force—true energy—wove themselves instantly through the cracked bone, linking severed tendons and muscle.

Every strand moved with surgical precision.

It was said the Danju of the Divine Sword Corps in Iphwang Fortress had become entirely martial art incarnate.

Jeong Yeon-shin was the same.

He’d seen enough bloodbaths to know: until death, there is no such thing as being unable to fight. That is now the position he must maintain.

This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.

The masked cataclysm snapped the fingers of the right hand Mun Gok held. A movement so minute, it was almost imperceptible. But it produced a finger wind.

Mun Gok, standing closest, and even Shin Tu beside him had no time to intervene.

A translucent spiral struck Mun Gok’s arm and thundered upward.

The colossal sleeve of the giant's robe crumpled in layers. At the same time, Mun Gok’s fingers loosened ever so slightly.

In an instant, Jeong Yeon-shin spun away—not only dodging the hand Shin Tu had placed on his front hem, but also deflecting Mun Gok’s straight punch with the motion of his entire body.

It was the Wind God’s footwork.

With a loud flutter of his robe, he spun right back to where he’d started.

At his feet lay the Sword Queen.

Still leaning on her sword, unconscious. As though nothing had ever happened.

She was Geum Seonseon, Sect Leader of Jeomchang. The eye of the storm.

Mun Gok, quick to assess the situation, flexed the hand that had taken the brunt of the finger wind and chuckled.

“Sword Queen Geum Seonseon... the eighth direct descendant of the Yunnan Gold Family, and the one who displayed the Moonlight Martial Art to the world. Her final signature move is Hou Yi Shoots the Sun. The defensive aura to counter her would be Solar Convergence Shroud. And beware the steps of Heavenly Yang Divine Step. Her face appears in the facial records sent from Yeoryeong.”

“Pure-blooded Yozoku must have large tongues, too.”

“The one Yaryul King seeks to protect is no small figure either. As the Southern Emperor said, your identity becomes ever clearer...”

Mun Gok let his sentence trail off suggestively.

Beside him, Shin Tu tapped her foot on the ground. She was accumulating propulsion energy. Each time her heel touched the earth, a soft dust ring rippled out in a perfect circle.

The ends of her long ash-gray hair flicked lightly, as if teasing the wind.

Shin Tu spoke in a dreamlike whisper.

“One draw is all it takes to take it back.”

There was no doubt what she meant.

The stolen half of the Zhongnan Sword Manual that Jeong Yeon-shin had taken. Her attention, as a Shin Tu, was entirely on the item someone had once stolen from her.

Two monstrous forces of the North, renowned for joint assault. Both had spent far longer in war than Jeong Yeon-shin ever had.

Naturally, one question rose to the surface.

How long could he protect the Sect Leader of Jeomchang?

From the distant sky, sharp shockwaves continued to burst over and over again. It was none other than the Sword Saint clashing with Liu Yuan Star General Yeom Jeong.

Now and then, thin white clouds were torn apart at the points where they collided.

‘Unless it’s one of the elders, there’s no one on our side who could hold her back.’

But it was impossible to predict the outcome.

The temperament of the one presumed to be Yeom Jeong was highly unusual. Her martial arts system was surely bizarre and grotesque as well.

Still, there was no time to think further.

Mun Gok and Shin Tu had vanished from their places.

And the next instant—

Before anyone realized it, Jeong Yeon-shin had advanced ten paces and was parrying every single strike from the two war monsters—his back fully turned to the Sword Queen.

The Light Wheel Qi spun ferociously from his heart, ramming force through his entire body.

His muscles had long been charged with the explosive force of Final Thunder, and his movement had fully adapted to the speed of Mun Gok and Shin Tu—his form was now a faint, flickering blur.

Semi-transparent storms spun at his feet, his arms and legs weaving together like a whip.

The afterimages grew darker and denser with each successive clash.

Every punch, every kick etched traces in the air, their numbers swelling like clouds—soon reaching into the hundreds.

Mun Gok’s brute-force punches, single-minded and fierce, crushed the ground beneath with every blow. Shin Tu stepped gracefully through the layers of stirred dust as though ascending stairs, her form fading and blurring.

Mun Gok rained punches like hailstones. His intent was clear—to pound Jeong Yeon-shin to death.

At the same time, an eerie wave of energy rose from Shin Tu’s body, seeping into Jeong Yeon-shin’s mind. It was literal light-nerve energy spinning around him.

Jeong Yeon-shin deflected and blocked all those strikes and motions with every limb he had. To keep his mind steady, he also focused his will on the upper danjeon, the center of divine energy.

Meanwhile, the two absolute enemies, hardened by endless war, replaced their inner energy breathing with speech.

“Pah Gun, is this all you’ve got!”

“Give it back. Hand it over.”

Whenever a massive fist was deflected across his forearm, their defensive auras exploded in dark blue light. Against Shin Tu’s limbs, constantly slamming down with the pressure of thousand-jin weights, Jeong Yeon-shin responded with the rebound force of True Radiant Celestial Line.

Each time, his internal organs suffered immense pressure, his shoulders slammed downward with force.

It felt the same as when he had withstood the joint assault of the Cheongeuk Munju and the Lord of Dark Heavens. He couldn’t gain the upper hand.

He could still hold out, for now.

The real problem struck from elsewhere. Enormous pressure began to close in from the distance.

A concentrated barrage of energy waves was closing in from all sides—not just one or two groups. These had to be martial forces brought by the Northern Kings.

The tremors of hooves, pulsing with internal energy.

The ground shook violently.

The scale of the vibrations alone suggested it—at least a thousand enemies were charging in from all directions on horseback.

Jeong Yeon-shin’s eyes sharpened.

‘Whipwind Ridge......’

The enemy’s reaction speed was terrifying.

Cheonggwang Plain had originally been a barren wilderness, and yet it now felt as though human curtains had been drawn up across it in an instant.

Naturally, even the reinforcements Jeong Yeon-shin had called would have been blocked.

Everything was a dilemma.

How to protect the Sword Queen in this chaos.

Which route to take to safely rejoin his allies.

“We may have acted with speed, but... I fear that book you took will be torn apart. Hand over that bundle of paper and agree to mediation. I can offer you nothing else.”

Mun Gok spoke even amid the intense movements, yet strangely, the shadow of the God of War—whom Jeong Yeon-shin had never even seen—seemed to loom behind his voice.

The Sound Cavern forged by the enemy.

Elite martial masters who had long moved as one. Martial unity on the scale of a nation’s Unified Martial Power.

‘Push forward directly, first....’

Jeong Yeon-shin was still chewing over that distant thought—

Suddenly, a chilling tremor pierced up from beneath his feet.

An inscription formed with footwork force tapped directly into the Yongcheon acupoint on his sole, and its meaning engraved itself instantly into his mind.

―This is Un Sohyeon, acting on behalf of the Master of Myungryu. I greet you. You may recall, we met once during the {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} Heavenly Gold Martial Gathering.

One of the seventeen presences most familiar to Jeong Yeon-shin. An energy wave operating on the internal art of Myungryu’s Earth King Divine Technique.

Like the aftershock of an earthquake that had already come and gone, the energy arrived with a time delay—containing even the resonance of the Radiant Seal.

Her identity was clear.

―I’ve compiled the details of both allies and enemies, and the martial abilities and elimination priority of key figures. As you know, the situation is dire. The battlefield stretches from here at Cheonggwang Plain to Yeoklu Fortress, and across to the opposite Haebing Mountain—over a diameter of one hundred li. I’ve assessed the war status, and will begin supporting you now.

In the storm of life-and-death resolve sweeping across the ocher-colored wasteland,

Jeong Yeon-shin’s expression shifted into the faintest smile—but he couldn’t reply to Un Sohyeon.

Myungryu’s secret Earth King Speech Method was a transmission technique with no locatable source.

Even if the master who cast it had died, the words left behind would still be delivered fully. It was like condensing all the energy of a strike into a single point.

―As things stand, Sword Queen Geum Seonseon is nothing more than a burden. I regret I did not obtain your consent as acting Master, but I will awaken her now.

Sky energy awakens the mind, and earth energy governs the body that supports the feet—so goes the rule.

The two were connected.

The earth energy unique to Myungryu passed through Jeong Yeon-shin and detonated beneath the Sword Queen’s feet and hips.

As the Sect Leader of Jeomchang knelt on one leg, her eyelids trembled ever so slightly.

Then, once more, Un Sohyeon’s energy wave gently wrapped around Jeong Yeon-shin’s heel. Because it was laced with the structure of the Radiant Seal’s true energy, it was naturally drawn toward his Light Wheel Qi.

―First, summon the violet long robe and Divine Sword Yeoroe. You must reclaim your identity.

The faith that flows even in the underworld.

It was said that only the Sword Corps Captain supported by a Great Master of Myungryu was granted the title of invincible.

Jeong Yeon-shin had become just that.